


BADLANDS

by Arcsana35



Series: a modern tragedy [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Allura (Voltron), Angry Keith (Voltron), Angry Lance (Voltron), Angry Pidge | Katie Holt, Angry Shiro (Voltron), BAMF Lance (Voltron), Blood and Injury, Cussing, Depressed Lance (Voltron), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Introspection, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, Lance (Voltron) Has Anxiety, Lance (Voltron) Has Self-Esteem Issues, Lance (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Not Canon Compliant, Obsessive Behavior, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Keith/Lance (Voltron), One-Sided Lance/Original Male Character (s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Lance (Voltron), Possessive Behavior, Sad Lance (Voltron), Sniper Lance (Voltron), Stalking, Violence, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23981713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcsana35/pseuds/Arcsana35
Summary: Hello, and I'm sorry.A salutation and a farewell.I don't have much time.This is all that's left.And you can do whatever you want with it.Keep it to yourself, or let it serve as a warning.This city is disgusting; a corpse of what it used to be.The people are filthy, gluttonous,Ruled by the power exchange of sex from the hands of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie.There are some here I love, some who fear me, and some who wish I was dead.I didn't ask for this; no one asks for this.You're born into it.If this were a movie, I would ride off in some blood-red sunset down a stretch of desert road into the wasteland that keeps us captive here.But this isn't a movie, these are the Badlands.
Relationships: Coran & Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Lance (Voltron), Lance/Original Male Character(s)
Series: a modern tragedy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1356106
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	1. Castle

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you for taking the chance to read my work! I'm working to improve my writing, and have decided to do so by working on a long work rather than just one-shots. I appreciate any type of criticism, comment, question, or praise! In fact, any interaction that you're comfortable with giving me, I appreciate! <3
> 
> The names of this work and its chapters are based on the Badlands album by Halsey! Please check her out at her:  
> Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/iamhalsey/featured  
> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HalseyMusic  
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/halsey  
> Apple Music: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/halsey/id324916925  
> Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/26VFTg2z8YR0cCuwLzESi2  
> Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamhalsey/
> 
> Warnings: This fic is going to have graphic descriptions of torture, mental issues, panic attacks, blood, vomiting, abuse (emotional, physical, verbal, and sexual), etc. I do not plan on censoring myself, or my writing in any way, so, if you are triggered in any way by that, please take care of yourself. I appreciate you reading my work, but you and your mental health come first and foremost in every situation. I want you to feel happy and appreciated, I do not want my work to cause anybody mental and/or physical pain if they can not handle it. If any part of my work triggers you in ANY way, please take care of yourself. You deserve happiness and safety. 
> 
> You are not alone.  
> loveisrespect: 1-866-331-9474  
> National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255  
> The Trevor Project: 866-488-7386  
> National Eating Disorder Association: 1-800-931-2237  
> Crisis Text Line: Text SUPPORT to 741-741  
> National Alliance on Mental Illness: 1-800-950-6264  
> Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network: 1-800-656-4673
> 
> Any updates or tags will be added as the work moves along.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voltron has returned! Right away, Allura wants to go on a mission, only problem? It places Lance in a bit of an... Awkward situation... Can Lance survive long enough to get back to the castle?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Graphic Violence, Blood, Stalkerish/Creepy Behavior, Graphic Injuries, Cussing, Depression, Graphic References to Suicide/Death
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter! Chapter One!! So exciting...

“-nce! Lance!” Fingers snapped in front of his face, and Lance was suddenly brought back to the meeting room. He shook his head and snapped to attention. Shit. He shouldn’t have spaced off. Dammit, it was so fucking hard to focus. 

“Uh- Sorry what?” Keith was glaring at him. Yeesh, what did he fuck up this time? Where was he? Oh. Right. Plan. Things. “Yeah- I- I was paying attention. What’s up?”

Shiro sighed and walked back over to his hologram planning things. How did they always have these models set up? Did they just spend hours playing around with hologram models until they could perfectly present their plans without a hitch and in an awesomely badass way? Like damn, just use a whiteboard. Wait no, focus, Lance was getting sidetracked. 

“As I was saying, Lance, your only job is to get in and get the charges set, okay? They need to be set up in the quintessence rooms, and the control deck. They need to be able to do as much damage as possible. Pidge will be your ride into the base. Do you understand?” Shiro spoke with an air of importance and confidence. Lance wished he could have that confidence without hardcore faking it. “Lance. Focus. Come on”

“Yeah- Sorry. Set charges.” Lance lightly bit on his lip and tried to look like he was actually paying attention as much as possible. “Er- how do I do that?”

“I just explained this! Why are you so fucking dumb??” Pidge rolled her eyes at him and ran her fingers through her hair. Kind of aggressively, that was aggressive, he felt that. “Look, all you have to do is throw it at a wall and make sure it’s green. Their blast radiuses are around 10 feet, so they don’t have to be that close together. Do ya get it? I have the control, so as soon as you’re out, you tell me and I’ll set it off.”

Lance nodded and was about to throw out some type of cheesy line to keep the conversation moving or something before Keith stood up and cut him off, “Do you understand, stupid? Throw bomb at wall, it make green color, good! Make red color, bad!” 

Okay, that was unnecessary. Why did Keith need to comment? Also, calling him stupid was unnecessary, he certainly received worse from Sandra. Though, she was racist, so… Yeah, Lance was pretty sure Keith wasn’t racist. Was Keith racist? Maybe Keith was racist… Oh shit, did he have a crush on a racist?? No- wait that was stupid. Keith wasn’t racist. Keith didn’t hate Hunk or Shiro or Pidge, so Keith wasn’t racist. Yeah, that was a weird tangent, he should probably respond. He should respond with something intelligent, something that makes them have faith in him. “Uh- yes. Understand. Lots.” Fuck. He’s a dumbass.

Keith dragged a hand down his face and collapsed back into his seat. “Why are we trusting this dumbass again?” Okay, first of all, hurtful, second of all, he was more than capable of stealth missions. Thank you. “He’s so loud all the time and flashy and is probably the worst person for this job?” 

Lance’s facade slipped slightly, and his face slackened. Just as quick as it slipped, Lance’s smile was back full force. “Hey! I got it, Mullet. Chill out.” Lance gripped at his arm and tried to distract himself from how much Keith’s words had hurt. “I set the charges, save the day, and the princess! You’re just jealous that I get to be the hero!” 

“Lance.” Allura glared at him and his smile only increased. “This is extremely important! The galaxy has been without Voltron for far too long! We have just gotten our leader and friend back, so could you please, for once in your life, take this seriously?? And Keith, you know perfectly well that the Red Lion is the fastest of the lions and would be better suited as a distraction than sitting to the side. Not to mention, Lance’s lion is currently… indisposed.”

Lance was taking this incredibly seriously. Sure he threw some jokes in there, but he wouldn’t let the team down. He would do his job and do his part to help in the war effort. He wasn’t going to fuck it up. He refused to fuck it all up again. “Don’t worry, Allura I-”

“Voltron needs to make it’s stance here! It is our first major mission since Shiro has been recovered! I will not have it fail! You need to pick up the pace and make an effort just like the rest of the team! You cannot let yourself fall behind, Lance! If you mess around yet again, I might just- you can kiss your family goodbye!” 

Lance reeled back and retreated. He stiffened in his seat and went silent. Lance’s hands went to his lap and stilled. His smile dropped and was replaced with an entirely blank face. “Yes ma’am.” Lance could vaguely see Hunk’s eyes on him, his brow creased in concern. 

“It’s not often that we are given the information to take down such a major station, so, make sure you pay attention and do your job. I will not accept another failure from you so soon. Paladins, you are dismissed. I hope you do good work out there today!” 

Lance stiffly got up and brushed Hunk’s words of concern off, instead, heading straight to Pidge’s lion, and waiting for the other to arrive. After a few seconds, Pidge arrived and grimaced. “Don’t fuck it up.” 

He stood quietly in the center while Pidge flew and didn’t bother responding to Hunk’s words of encouragement. Of course, Allura, Shiro, Keith, and Pidge were teaming up against him. What did he expect? He was trash and out of everybody, they wouldn’t take his shit. Hunk’s words were helpful and hyped Lance up, but he didn’t need the distractions. He already was messing up, he didn’t need to anymore. Pidge got him to the base quickly enough and he disembarked into the South East hanger. Lance quietly slipped through the halls until he got to the main power source powering the base, some sort of giant power core. A little off mission, but this energy source would create a larger explosion than the one from the charges. It was just a higher risk to be messing around in such an important room. 

Lance climbed his way up to a catwalk and surveyed the room. There were about 10 sentries in the room, a couple grouped, a couple alone. Lance winced as he heard a string of curses and the sounds of some explosions from his comms. The team had been found out a little quicker than normal. The room shook slightly from the aftershocks and Lance cringed. He switched off the com and set his helmet down carefully beside him. Lance raised his bayard and focused his energy, forming it into an elegant sniper rifle resembling a Barrett M82, something he was only allowed to hold once on Earth. It was truly a beautiful weapon. Lance took a deep breath, counted to five, finally steadying the gun, and…

He fired.

The sentries dropped fast and hard, making a clunking sound when they hit the ground, one by one. They didn’t even have the time to notice him before they were all destroyed, clean headshots. Of course they were clean headshots, he was only the best sniper on Earth. Lance shoved his helmet on and dropped down from the catwalk. He stuck a couple of the charges onto the powercore and made sure they were green. Yes, Keith, he could tell that the charges were good. From there, he made his way outside, hoping to get through the halls and to the other rooms before the sentries noticed that an entire group of them had made their ascension into the universe. 

He only had three rooms left to go, the two quintessence rooms, and the control deck traveling through the base to the other rooms, he was able to place the charges in the quintessence rooms without issue. Probably because there weren’t any sentries there, and only had the danger of there being a druid or something. In the second room, Lance had a close encounter with the druid, but it didn’t seem to recognize that he was there, so he was able to slip in and out. Two quintessence rooms done, now all that was left was the control deck. Lance clicked the comms back on, and made his way through the halls, half paying attention to his teammates. 

“Lance! Hurry up! We’re getting slightly overwhelmed here!” 

Lance started to run, letting the adrenaline consume him and his mind race. When he turned a corner, he ran straight into an incredibly large group of sentries. Fuck. Lance was fucked. He panicked, “...Hello there!” 

Lance had to do it! He was in the perfect situation to do it! The main sentry pointed at him and suddenly all of their guns were trained on him. Lance pivoted on his feet and bolted in the opposite direction. Shit, shit, shit! He should have just gone straight for the quintessence rooms and the control deck! Maybe it would have been faster and he could have gotten out of there faster! Where did this stupid ass group even fucking come from? Zarkon’s asshole? It was supposed to be a quick in and out mission. All stealth, no danger. Easy! Though, honestly, in Lance’s obviously amazing opinion, the fact that he wasn’t lying on the floor bleeding out from hundreds of bullet wounds was an admirable achievement. 

As Lance ran, he threw charges at the walls and ducked into corners. He still had to complete the mission (even though he fucked it up in the first place). The team was depending on him to get the charges set. He was definitely losing most of the sentries as he turned sharp corners, so, maybe Lance would actually walk away mostly okay from this mission. Really, all he needed to do was get to the control deck and set the charges there. 

So simple, so easy. He could do this. If only he could get to the control deck. It wasn’t his fault that all of the hallways had the same drab decor! How was he supposed to tell apart the endless walls of purple, purple, purple, and more purple?! Lance stopped running and brought both hands up to smack his cheeks. He needed to be more stealthy. He needed to be like Pidge, and not him. He was stupid, Pidge was not stupid, therefore, the logical conclusion should be that he should be more like Pidge. Pidge made plans, Pidge had maps. Oh wait! Pidge had given him schematics of the base! Lance pressed some buttons on his arm computer thing and pulled up the schematics. He could see the path to the control deck clearly, and he made his way there as quietly as possible. See, when he wasn’t being regular old Lance, he made smart decisions. 

Lance quickly hacked into the control pad and forced the door open. Thank god (or whatever is actually out here) for Matt teaching him how to code and hack back at the Garrison. Thank god for Matt’s beautiful face and perfect ass in general. God, Lance missed him so fucking much. Lance slinked into the control deck and looked around. Surprisingly the control deck was actually empty, okay that was definitely weird. Weren’t the control decks usually teaming with sentries, and officers, and the general? He supposed this was considerably lucky since he really didn’t want or need another giant horde of sentries on his ass. If his ass was a bar during happy hour, the sentries would definitely be the annoyingly violent regulars. Well, it didn’t matter. If they weren’t there then they weren’t there. Lance set back to work and set more charges. 

One of the charges he set was giving him a little bit of trouble, it apparently didn’t want to set. Lance was doing everything that Pidge had told him to do! He attached it to the wall and didn’t touch it anymore, but it wasn’t lighting up! Stupid charges. These charges better work and if they didn’t work, they would probably all end up dead. Pidge and Hunk had designed them just the week before and hadn’t had the chance to test them. To be fair though, it wasn’t like Allura would just let them blow the castle to bits. But that was all okay. Dying was okay. It’s okay. Everything is fine. This is fine.

It was not fine.

Lance heard the blaster shot too late and by the time he had realized that something had sniped him, he had a sizable wound in his stomach. Damn the Paladin Armour and it’s weird-ass flaws. Lance let out a frankly pathetic whimper and fell to the floor. 

“Now what do we have here...? A little Paladin who got lost?”

Apparently, the room wasn’t as empty as he had though. Great. Another fuck up to add to the list. Lance felt his body being rolled over onto his back and he was able to get a good look at his attacker. It was a hulking Galran general who was not in the mood to put up with his bullshit. Or maybe he was, he certainly looked very amused. “Uh… Hi? Who are you?”

“Hello, little one.” The purple furry smirked at him (yeah this was definitely not going to end very well) and gently (not really), sadistically brought his boot down on Lance’s wound, eliciting a choked cry from him. “You are an alluring creature, aren’t you? Your whimpers sound beautiful, like a melody...”

Lance could barely hear him over the roaring in his ears, burning pain filling all of his senses, bringing tears to his eyes. The sensation was astounding. It was almost as bad as the fucking explosion from when all of this bullshit had started. “S-stop-!” God, that sounded even more pathetic. The general was probably going to throw him into some type of horrifying torture machine or something. That would suck. But maybe- maybe he could still set off the charges? If he shot one of them that would probably set off a chain reaction throughout the base. If he were to set off a chain reaction, everybody in the Galra would die and he would too. Maybe then the team would give more than a rat’s arse about him when he was dead. Heh. Rat’s arse. Lance kind of missed Gordon Ramsey. Gordon Ramsey was cool. Nevermind all of that, it was definitely worth it to blow up this stupid station. Given that it was one of the biggest bases under the command of Emperor Zarkon. Armed with a plan, Lance tried his best to focus his bayard into his gun and aim at the closest charge. 

“Ah, ah, ah! You’re not going to do that, little one!” Fuck. He had forgotten about the general. How did he do that? Truly, what a great unsolvable mystery. Maybe Lance really was as stupid and dumb as the team said. Or maybe it was ADHD, who knows? Probably Lance, but clearly the team knew him better than he knew himself. Also, screw the general or whatever for ruining his inner monologue. Clearly, his thoughts were more important than whatever this bitch ass space nazi was doing. Okay, maybe not, but, Lance was running on adrenaline, who was going to judge him? Also, how the fuck was he still mostly coherent? Was it the fact that he was desensitized to pain? Yeah, it was because he was desensitized to pain. 

The knock off version of a cat took away his bayard and put it away. Did the bitch know that Lance could just summon it back to his hands? No? Okay. Lance could work with that. He bound Lance’s hands behind his back with cuffs. After double-checking that Lance was secured, he threw Lance over his shoulder and wow- Lance had not noticed how fucking big this dude was. He was easily over seven and a half feet, dwarfing Lance’s height. Fuck off Marco, five foot nine is not that bad, he was still a growing young man, thank you very much. Maybe, just maybe, if he wasn’t dropped by big sis VV when he was 5, then he would be a lot taller. 

“-oing to make you and your body mine.” Right. The general was talking to him. Something about bodies? Lance didn’t know. He wasn’t really paying attention, more focused on the important things. Like what he had for breakfast- goo, and what he was going to do if he survived this mission- take a bath. Baths were wonderful, Lance loves baths. There was this one time that he remembered, where he accidentally flooded the bathroom with bright pink, sparkly, lavender-scented water. It was definitely worth the vibe check from his mom to see the expression on Luis’ face when he came home. “You will know nothing but pain and pleasure brought by my hand and only my hand…” 

Right. The general. “That’s creepy dude. You’re low key freaking me out here.” 

The Galra chuckled and shifted Lance around on his shoulder. “The little one has a mouth to him! Not to worry, I will have fun breaking that spirit of yours.” 

Okay. Lance had had enough of this treatment, this shit was getting way too real, way, way, way to fast. He needed to get free from this perverted asshole and call Keith in. Lance, thought of all the ways to get around this guy and all the ways to eat a churro! Since he was Galra, his hearing was most likely enhanced, so the best option was to screech and make unholy noises, possibly making him drop Lance? It was worth a shot. Yeah no, this could go wrong in so many ways. This is going to go terribly. No. No need to think about it anymore. The wise words of John Cena came to him; Just Do It!

Lance let out an inhumane screech, that probably would have scared even the Rake away, and the Galra immediately dropped him. The ground came way too hard, and way too fast making his stomach scream to his brain that it was injured, in the form of it feeling like it was literally on fire. All of the moving was certainly not helping his happy little accident (Lance also missed Bob Ross, what a national treasure). Lance summoned his bayard to his hand and turned around to book it out of the hallway and away from the jackass. Lance tore down hallways and rooms to get away from the guy, and just as he rounded another corner, he heard a roar of anger behind him. Yikes, that dude seriously needed to take a chill pill, damn. Keeping a hand firmly secured on the wound to try and keep it from bleeding too much, he weaved through the hallways and darted past sentries. 

Lance continued to run until he was sure that he was on the other side of the base away from the trashy version of Onision. Why was he the trashier version of Onision? Onision was just a weird-ass groomer who was into minors, this dude was a literal fucking nazi who was also into minors. Man, there must be some type of trophy for being worse than Onision. If it was real, it probably would be made of some cheap silver and have the words, “Universes’ #1 Worst Person!” written in Nickelodeon’s Atomic Puke Green. Though to be fair, the concept of “minors” probably didn't exist in space. Or maybe it did and that guy really was a space pedophile, who knows? 

As soon as he was pretty sure that he got far enough away, he checked in to see if anybody could come pick him up. “Hey guys?” While he waited, Lance reached into one of his side pockets and pulled out a small bottle of alcohol, some ointment, a couple of pads of medical gauze, and bandages. He ripped open the midsection of his undersuit, wincing when it started to bleed heavily. “I know we’re busy and stuff but-” 

“Shut up, Lance, nobody fucking cares!” Pidge snapped over the com. Ouch, that one kind of hurt. She was clearly not in the mood for his shit. Well, if she would just listen and come get him he would get out of her hair soon enough. “Just take care of it yourself! And don’t you have a job to do?! Or are you too weak for even that?!”

He bundled up the piece of fabric and shoved it into his mouth, then poured the alcohol on the wound. His eyes began to tear up as he bit down hard on the cloth. Maybe the team could hear his muffled screams, maybe not. But dammit, the fucking alcohol hurt like a bitch.

“Lance? What’s going on, buddy?” Hunk’s voice rang through the coms pushing all of the others to the background. 

He scrubbed at his eyes and spat out the disgusting gag, and applied the ointment, relaxing at the soothing feeling. “Nothing, forget about it, Hunk I’m fine. But I really do need-”

“Crap, I have to go! Lance you can do it, I believe in you! You can make it!” Hunk’s voice cut out after that. 

It was nice to hear the words of encouragement from Hunk. The team was probably just busy and couldn’t reach him, and if Hunk believed in him, then he could make it. With renewed vigor, Lance glanced around his surroundings, making sure that the overgrown abortion hadn’t caught up to him yet. Hopefully he would be blown up with the rest of the base. Okay, that was not a nice thing to say, it’s not good to be wishing death on another person, but it’s war right? Yeah, no, the nightmares would definitely be worse tonight. The nightmares really weren’t that important, Lance pushed the gauze on his wound and wrapped the bandages tightly around his stomach. He was fucking exhausted. A nice nap in the healing pods and then a bubble bath would do him good when he got back to the castle. Then probably some cookies from Hunk? Maybe team movie night? Maybe he could close his eyes just for a little bit until someone came a-

Lance huffed in annoyance when he heard the sounds of sentry patrols, and got up to keep moving. Why couldn’t he just sit down for a little bit? He stuck close to the walls and tried to bide time until Shiro told him where to go. His heart was pounding, his mind was filled with the possibilities of being caught by the weirdo general, who he was officially dubbing The General™, Lance was trying to find a hanger or hell, even a hole so he could just evac. Maybe, maybe, if he tried hard enough, Blue would come to his call? Even still, maybe not. She was still undergoing repairs after his last fuck up. Lesson learned from that mission; the others are busy and don’t have time for his bullshit. Anyways, that was definitely a last-minute option if he really, really , didn’t have a choice. Lance didn’t want his beautiful baby to be overextending herself, after all. 

“Lance! Did you get your charges set up?” Shiro grunted out through the comms, snapping Lance out of his poise. “We need them now!”

“Yeah I got them set up a while ago, I need an evac.” Lance murmured into comms, keeping low to the ground and peeking around corners.

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?! We could have been done with all this sooner!”

Lance shook his head and brushed him off. Yeah, he got the mission done but he was really not doing so hot, but wow, look at that, nobody fucking cared. Yeah, that whole thing with the general dude was probably super important and relevant, but was he going to tell Shiro that? No. No, he was not going to do that. “Wow Shiro, I’m doing fucking great by the way. Thanks for asking.” 

“Lance, focus. I’ll send Keith to go get you. Also- Language.” Wow- Shiro didn’t even tell Lance exactly where Keith was going to pick him up, or even if Keith would actually do it. Keith seemed to low key hate him or something like that. It was weird.

“Yeah, but where the fudgy wudgy kins am I going to meet Keith? You can’t just-” 

“You still have the schematics right? Meet Keith in the hanger you infiltrated for evac.” 

Well. Okay. That was fine. Except, in his haste to get away from The General™, Lance had lost his way and had exactly zero clue where he was currently. He should probably bring that up, even though they were going to yell at him. “Uh… So, problem with that? I have no idea where the hecky wecky I actually am.” 

“Dammit Lance! Are you fucking stupid? My god.” Keith had decided to chime in to the conversation, apparently. Good for him. Right at it with attacking his character and making fun of his intelligence. Yup, certainly things “friends” do for each other. Why couldn’t they make fun of him for other things? Like being a crackhead, or being an overbearing brother. At least he could laugh those off. The whole “let’s jab at Lance with his stupid insecurities” was getting pretty old. Honestly, he just wanted to go back to the castle and sleep off the pain. 

“Pidge, can you just find him, please?” Shiro was probably annoyed that Lance had gotten lost. God, he was so stupid, why did these things keep happening to him? He should have been more careful around the control deck, he should have tried harder to avoid losing his way while running. He should have been able to get these stupid fucking cuffs immediately. Yet here he was, trying to sneak around a giant base crawling with the Galra and its forces with his hands bound behind his back without a clue where he actually was. 

“I’m a little busy?? Can’t you just find your own way? Shit! FUCK-!” 

Lance’s heart caught in his chest, his mind screaming at him to go find Pidge and never let her get hurt ever again. Maybe wrap her in bubble wrap and place her in a padded room with all of the electronics and food she could get. Pidge might have been shot down, she might have been captured, she might have been- no stop it. He had his own problems to worry about without the anxiety monkey acting up and screeching at him. “Pidge!? Are you okay?!”

“Yeah, Lance, just fucking peachy. There I sent you the shit. Get the fuck off the comms, your voice is so fucking annoying.” 

Lance sighed in relief and brought his hands down and in front of him, looking at the cuffs locking his hands together. They were plain silver and held together with some sort of chain. They would definitely be hard to get off, but not impossible. If he found some sort of thin pipe or metal stick he would be able to break them apart. Looking around, he found nothing. Wow, unfortunate but not unexpected. 

Lance checked his arm computer thing (wow, he should probably rename that) for the messages from Pidge. From where he was, it looked like he had run in the exact opposite direction of where he needed to be right now. That meant he had to run back and possibly run into The General™ again. Fuck. Well, if another one bites the dust, then another one bites the dust. Yeah, that was probably not that great of a mindset to have, but who cares? He was fighting an interstellar war. It’s not like fighting a war would improve his mental state. 

Lance rounded a corner and ran into something pretty big. He gasped as he landed on his ass. Right in front of him was the hulking general with a really freaky smile on his face. It was a smile! How the fuck was it so creepy?? What was that about Lance being fucked? Yeah, well, he’s definitely double fucked now. 

“What did you find, Lance? A pretty girl?” Keith spat through the coms. “Hurry up, I can’t just wait here all day.” 

“Hello, My dear!” The general leered over him, “How about this? Since you’re so feisty, let’s play a game, yes? I’ll give you a 10 tick head start! Run, run, run away little Mew'Cona!” 

“10!”

Lance scrambled to his feet, turning and running the other way.

“9!”

Lance tripped and crashed down to the ground, twisting his right ankle. 

“8!” 

Lance clambered up and limped through the halls.

“7! I’m coming!” 

Lance could hear the general’s thundering steps getting closer and closer. Lance had to get away, he had to move, he had to do something, anything! Lance looked at the hallway of rooms before him and then opened a couple of doors, slinking into a random one and ducking down to hide among the shelves. 

“Seriously Lance! We need to go!” Lance glared at the wall, mocking Keith. He muted the team and himself. He had to be quiet right now, it was only a matter of time before the general found him again. He needed to move. Looking around at the room, it had a lot of shelves filled with random machinery parts. Pidge and Hunk would probably like this room, they always liked to tinker with random objects. Stumbling around the room a little more, Lance found a vent and tore the cover off. It would fucking suck to be crawling around on his stomach, but he really didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t like he could really outrun the general with his other happy little accident. Lance bit his lip and crawled in. 

The adrenaline was probably the only thing keeping him going, his mind was betraying him. It slipped into a blurry haze. Hands forward, slide; his eyes started to blur. Hands forward, slide; his ears rang. Hands forward, slide; his mouth tasted like copper. Hands forward, slide; his breaths were short. Hands forward, slide; his nerves were on fire. His thoughts screamed at him, over and over and over again, “Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep goi-”

The general’s growling voice resounded through the vents, freezing Lance in place and making his blood run cold.“Find him!! NOW!” 

Lance clapped his hands over his mouth to muffle his breathing and he squeezed his eyes shut. After a couple of agonizing moments, the heavy footsteps of the sentry group and the general faded away into the distance. Even then, Lance stayed frozen for what felt like hours, maybe even days. When he was absolutely sure that they were gone, he finished his crawl to the hallway outside of the hanger. He almost cried in relief when he sort of recognized the hallway which he had originally come in from. Lance dropped down, letting out a shout when he landed on his ankle. Lance crawled to the door, hoping to get it open and get out before-

“Too loud~!” The general was suddenly behind him, grabbing his chest plate and hurling him at the closest wall. Lance bounced off of it, rolling and coming to a halt a few feet away from the general’s feet. His mind and body  **screamed** . Lance was going to die! He was going to die, die, die, die , d **ie** ,  **die** ,  **D I E** . 

No! He can’t. He won’t!

He had to keep going! He needed to keep going! For the team. He had to finish the mission, whatever it took. No matter the consequences he had to keep going. If he didn’t, he was just as useless as they said. Lance slammed his hands out in front of him and his arm seared in pain. It was probably broken or sprained or something. Lance wheezed out a shaky breath and glared at the general above him. If he was going to go down here, he wouldn’t go down without a fight. He pushed himself up. 

The General licked his lips in excitement and stomped his boot down on Lance’s side, his ribs cracked, “Ah, the fire that you have in your eyes is addictive. I wonder how they’ll look when you’re begging for the pain to stop?” 

Lance let out a sob and fell back down, curling up. The general kicked him a few more times before stopping, choosing instead to look down almost mockingly above him. He ripped off the bandages. Lance’s eyes burned from unshed tears, but he refused to let them drop, he would not fall. Lance was strong. Lance could make it through this. Lance bit his tongue and swallowed the hurt, swallowed the tears, swallowed the screams, and pushed himself up again. 

Then the general wrapped a fist at Lance’s neck and threw him against the other wall. If his arm wasn’t broken before, it definitely was now. The general grabbed his head, taking Lance’s helmet and ripped it off, tossing it to the side. Lance was sure he could hear it cracking against the ground. Maybe the general was crushing it under his feet. Maybe he was next.

“Oh? You’re still trying to escape?” The general crouched down and grabbed Lance's hair, pulling him up slightly. He rammed Lance’s face into the ground a couple of times before holding him up again. Staring into the bloodied, broken face of the blue paladin. “You know, other prisoners have long given up before this, not even bothering to run. They only beg for death… But you, you’re different. You’re special. I like you.” 

Lance spat in his face and ripped himself away from the general’s grasp. “Go to hell, asshole!” 

As Lance fell, he braced for the ground and jumped into a crouching position. Lance stood up and brought his knee up into the general’s chin. If he couldn’t fight with his arms, he would fight with his legs. Lance ended up knocking the general’s head backward slightly, barely anything. Lance jumped backward when he realized that the general hadn’t been hurt in the slightest. He needed to end this quickly, his ankle was getting worse, and he couldn’t even put it down without it screaming in pain at him. The general grabbed his chin, massaging it slightly while he rose to his feet. “Nice try.”

Lance let out a frustrated screech of anger and summoned his bayard to his hand, willing for anything, any type of weapon that could help him and then he charged at the general. He was so fucking tired of this stupid mission; He was tired of the general, he was tired of the team, he was tired of feeling shitty all of the damn time. All he wanted was all of this to be over. He wanted to be with his friends. He wanted to see his papa again, he wanted to see Iverson again. He wanted to joke and laugh with Coran. He wanted to bake and do face masks with Hunk. Lance just wanted to go home. Lance felt some type of knife materialize in his hands and he jumped upwards. Lance slashed down at the general’s face with as much force as he could.

The general shouted in surprise and fell to his knees, clutching at his face. When Lance landed, he snatched his helmet up and limped towards the door and prayed for it to open in time. As the door took it’s time sliding open, Lance ignored the horrible screams of pain from the general, fighting the urge to go comfort him just so the agonized screams could stop. No! Lance needed to keep moving. When the opening was wide enough, Lance squeezed through and ran to the large doors of the hanger. He slapped his hand on the controls for the comms and frantically shouted, “I’m here at the evac point! Where are you?!”

“Jesus, Lance! Where were you?” Keith responded almost immediately. Lance let out a cry of relief at Keith’s voice. It was all going to be okay, Keith would- “You weren’t responding so I left! I’m already back at the castle! We’re all already back at the castle!”

“Wait, you left me?! No-!”

Pidge scoffed at him, “What’s your big deal? I thought you were already back at the castle? It’s not our fault you fucking suck at communication.” Despite her harsh words, Pidge seemed worried. Her voice was slightly shaky and she seemed a little desperate to keep the fear from her words.

“No! No, no, no, no no, nonono, nonononono!! I- Why? You- How am I supposed to get back? Why-”

“I-I don’t know, Lance! Figure it out! You have 10 dobashes before we wormhole! If you can make it sooner, we’ll be out of this graveyard sooner! Oh, come on!” 

“Lance. Stop rambling and get out of there.” Shiro’s words hurt. Couldn’t he tell that Lance was trying so fucking hard to get out? Couldn’t he understand?? “Just- Just focus, okay?”

Tears streamed down Lance’s face, mixing with the blood from his broken nose. He felt so hurt and betrayed. “B-but how c-can I-” he heard a soft click and the line went dead. Pidge had cut him off. How could she just cut him off? Why? WHY?! He was so close! He was so fucking close!! Lance let out a sob and dropped to his hands and knees, vomiting out a filthy mixture of food and blood. He wasn’t going to make it. Of course he wasn’t going to, useless weak little Cuban boy. He wasn’t a prodigy, he wasn’t a survivor, he wasn’t the best pilot from the Garrison. He was nothing. 

No! No! No no no! He wouldn’t go out like this! Lance lifted his right hand and slapped himself. Lance Fucking McClain would not let some stupid assholes bring him down! He wanted to swim in the sea at least one more time! He wanted to graduate from the Garrison! God knows he worked hard enough for years to get his stupid fucking degree. He wanted to kiss Keith Kogane on his soft lips and declare his love. Lance would not give up, no matter how much this stupid shitty day brought him down, he would fight to keep going. He would fight for Voltron, he would fight against the Galra, he would fight the entire damn universe if he had to. He was a McClain; McClains don’t give up. 

Lance set his helmet down gently and closed his eyes and reached out to his lion. He weaved his way through the other spirits, the fiery red, the fresh green, the peaceful black, the mellow yellow until he could feel her calm presence. He reached into her deep ocean and basked in her gentle waves, letting their minds meld and entrusting himself to her beautiful blue waters. Lance begged her to come, he begged her to help him, to save him. Blue was out of the hanger within seconds, ignoring Allura’s indignant shouts of displeasure. Allura could suck it up, her cub needed her. 

Lance snapped out of his trance at the sound of the approaching general. Fucking- Why couldn’t he just get rid of him? Hadn’t he suffered enough? Hadn’t he been through enough today? Just a little bit longer, just the littlest tiniest bit longer and he could escape and see the stars again. Lance didn’t even bother fighting against the general when he knelt gently in front of him. He didn’t bother hiding his tears. He could barely see him anyways, what was the fucking point? He was going to die. “Haven’t you done enough?” Lance rasped. 

The general gently laid his hands on Lance’s face, wiping away the tears and blood. “Oh my dear, you have no idea… You have no concept of suffering. You understand nothing…” Lance let out another dry sob. The general gently, ever so blissfully placed a kiss on Lance’s forehead. “When I laid eyes upon you today, I knew that I had to have you. The way you cried for me, the way you fought, it was delightful. But, I admit my defeat today. I misjudged your strength my Mew'Cona. I won’t give up. Next time you will be mine. Be strong. Next time, I will have you in my grasp.” 

“I-I don’t want-”

The general shushed him, “No matter where you run, I will chase you. No matter where you hide, I will find you. No matter how much protection you have, I will fight for you. Even in death, I will haunt you and claim you. Nothing will stop me. Nothing will save you. Your body is mine. Your mind is mine. Your very soul is mine. But to love you, my Mew'Cona, is to know when to let go. I must let you go now, lest death claims us both.”

Lance leaned into the gentle touch of the general. He felt comforted by the strong hands and soft voice, it reminded him of Keith. His eyes were swelling closed, his mind floating away into the sea, and as the general gently maneuvered him, Lance didn’t know what was happening. He was too out of it, too numb to understand what was happening. When he was done, the general made his way to an empty speeder, before disappearing into the expanse of space. Lance laid still on the ground. 

“-cub! My Pilot! You must wake up, my cub!! You have less than 5 dobashes to make it back to the Castle!” Blue’s voice shook Lance awake and he slowly got up. It took hours, but he grabbed his helmet and limped into Blue’s cockpit. 

“Lance where are you?! Come on!”

“‘M com’n ‘unk” Lance slurred out, letting Blue take over in getting him back to the Castle. He was safe. He was going to be okay. 

“I can see Blue coming back! Blow it up!” Shiro called out. 

Lance barely registered the station blowing to pieces behind him as he relaxed into the hold of his blue. Lance barely felt it when they landed in the Castle and wormholed away. Lance woke up days later, blood dried on his face and nobody there to wipe away his dry tears. In a trance, Lance limped out of Blue, holding his arm close to his side as he leaned against the walls. His ears were ringing so loudly he could barely hear his own thoughts. He was probably leaving a blood trail. That would be hard to clean, maybe he could convince Coran to leave it for him. Allura would probably be pissed at him for being gone for so long. It was hard to see. It was hard to breathe. 

Lance found Coran in the healing pod room, furiously scrubbing at the healing pods. That was odd, usually, Coran was so happy? Lance wondered what was bothering him so much… Lance let a crooked smile spread across his face and he whispered, “C’ran?” The old man whipped around just in time to see Lance’s body collapse in a puddle of his blood. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments, Kudos, artwork, and inspired works are always welcome! I love to read anything anybody sends me! Criticism is very, very, very, much welcome! I'm doing this to help improve my character work and storytelling, so any and all comments about my writing style, development, or anything really is super, duper appreciated! 
> 
> Thank you for reading!! <3


	2. Hold Me Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunk and Coran patch up their beautiful blue boy while Hunk tries his best not to break down. There's a little screaming, there's a little anger, but there's a lot of healing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Screaming/Fighting, Blood, Surgery, Suicide (mentioned), Self Harm (mentioned)
> 
> So... It's been a while, hasn't it? I made the mistake over overestimating myself. The things I did over the past week was basically plan out the entire trilogy (yes this will be a trilogy) and do some character work. I really hope you guys like what I have planned! I promise that I'll get chapters out faster, so you don't have to worry about me taking forever again!
> 
> This chapter took a lot out of me, to be honest. It has sooooooo much introspection and stuff, and honestly, everybody sounds kind of dramatic and emo in this... I hope you enjoy it!

Hunk was having a pretty good day, he was definitely happy that the mission had succeeded. The bombs he had worked on with Pidge had worked out really well! They took out the entire base and they made a clean getaway! But, he wasn’t entirely happy with what happened. Hunk was so angry that the team had threatened to leave Lance behind, but he was glad that Lance had gotten in just in time. Hunk knew that Blue would go and pick Lance up, out of all of the team, Lance probably had the strongest bond with his lion. He couldn’t wait to tell Lance what a good job he did during the mission! Usually, he would come and drop in while Hunk was cooking to snack on some things and get his energy back up. Any minute now, Lance would strut in, groaning about how hard the mission was and how much he wanted to go to sleep. Any minute now. For the time being, Hunk would make Lance’s favorite; traditional Cuban Chicken Noodle Soup. He deserved it after all the hard work he had done today.

After about an hour, Hunk was starting to worry. Maybe Lance had to talk to Allura and Shiro about something? They were pretty harsh on him. Pidge was particularly hard on him, during the mission, and so was Keith. Was Lance hurt because of it? Was Lance overthinking it all and using their cruel words to fuel his self-deprecation tendencies? Was he doing okay? Where was he? Was Lance going to start self-harming again? Was he going to make another attempt? Was Lance- no, Hunk was letting his anxieties freak him out again. He was overthinking, Lance was probably fine. He might just be cleaning and taking care of Blue and lost track of time. Lance had a habit of spacing out like that. Okay, Hunk would be a great buddy and get him a snack. 

Hunk left his pots to simmer and grabbed a couple of leftover garlic buns from the fridge. He heated them up in the space microwave and put them in a little bowl for Lance. Before leaving the kitchen, he double-checked that his pots were okay before heading down to the Blue Lion’s hanger. He stopped short before he actually went in, catching sight of a large ugly bloodstain. Hunk gripped his bowl garlic knots tight in his arms, as he tore down the hallways following the blood trail. It was spattered, and red, and ugly. It was disgusting. How could he have not known? How could he have not noticed? Hunk was a terrible friend. 

Hunk followed the blood trail down to the medical wing, where he heard the sounds of metal clattering and huffed breathing. Hunk turned the corner and stopped short in the doorway. Coran was looking at some x rays or pictures of something while Lance’s body lay on the metal table. Lance was only wearing his black undersuit and was pale. Much, much, much too pale. There was blood all over his face, head, and body. Was he dead? No. No, Lance wasn’t dead, Coran had a heart rate machine thing hooked up to him and it looked somewhat steady. 

Hunk turned around and threw up on the floor. He let out a sob and coughed out the phlegm, getting rid of the vile taste in his mouth. He dry heaved for several seconds- maybe minutes before looking back up again at Coran, who was still glancing over the pictures. Coran seemed calm, but then again, Coran was probably always looking calm. As a medical practitioner, he knew how to school his emotions. 

“If you would like to stay, why don’t you go take a seat on that bench over there? Take a breath and try to calm down, our friend Lance here is entirely stable right now.” Coran gestured to a long padded bench on the wall. It had a bunch of pillows and was looking out to a window into space. It looked really comfortable. Hunk wondered why it was in the medical room of all places. “I’m working on this stomach wound right here, so I’ll call you over if I need your help…” 

Hunk nodded and went to sit on the bench. Coran set down his stack of papers and opened up a container of healing goop stuff. The goop was meant to stop bleeding and start cell regeneration. Hunk had seen the goop used only once, by Lance when Shiro had been injured on the field by a nasty blaster shot. It was still back in the first few months of Voltron and they were doing a recon mission that had gone wrong on some planet. Shiro was in too much pain to deal with it himself and Hunk was freaking out at the sight of blood. Lance had pushed Hunk aside and had set to taking care of it himself, it had shocked Hunk to see him work so efficiently. 

Coran inspected the hole in Lance’s stomach and when he determined that enough had been spread over the inflamed skin, he pressed some gauze on and wrapped a bandage tightly around Lance’s stomach. Hunk thought he saw another wound on his stomach, but he was more focused on the blaster shot. He would worry about the other thing later. 

How had Lance gotten so hurt? What was in the base that had injured him this much? What had happened? Why hadn’t Hunk and the others realized how much he had been hurt over the coms? Hunk thought back to the conversations and what Hunk had said before his coms were shut off and almost threw up again. Hunk  _ had _ heard him. Lance had sounded desperate and had stuttered a lot. He had freaked out at the mention of being left behind! Why hadn’t Hunk said anything, or done anything?! Why did Shiro or Allura recognize that? Why hadn’t they seen how much pain he was in?! 

“Hunk, my boy, come here! I need your expertise!” Coran had put a breathing mask of some sort on Lance's face and was restraining Lance’s arm to the clean metal table. “Lance has a comminuted fracture to his radius? I believe you humans call it, about halfway up his forearm. I have to reset it using what you humans call ORIF surgery, and I need you to help me. I can do this myself if you are not up to the task, but it would be a great help for you to be here.” 

“M-me?” Hunk scrubbed his arm across his mouth and punched his forehead. Anything for Lance. Anything. He set down the garlic knots to the side on a small table and moved to Coran. “No, no, not now. What do you need, Coran?” 

“First, get some gloves and a mask on, we need to be sterilized to avoid any type of nasty infection. The castle protects us from most diseases and nasty buggies but one can never be too careful. I’m going to be making an incision to Lance’s forearm, and be moving the bones back into place. Are you ready?” 

Hunk nodded and quickly pulled on gloves and wrapped a mask around his face. Coran took a pair of scissors from a tray of tools sitting next to him and cut open the undersuit up to Lance’s elbow. Coran poured a little alcohol on a small piece of gauze and wiped down the area where the incision was being made. It was bruised purple and yellow. “Hand me that syringe of clear liquid.” Hunk looked at the tray of tools, picked out the syringe, and handed it to Coran. 

He was kind of freaking out. His buddy was lying mostly motionless on a table in front of him, really, really, really hurt. Was this his fault? Was it the team's fault? What had happened in that stupid base that had hurt Lance so much?? Should he have had back up? The forces outside of the base itself were pretty bad, but maybe Hunk could have been in the base with Lance, maybe it would have worked out better. Maybe instead of Lance lying on a table, it would have been him and Lance would be standing over him, helping Lance perform surgery. 

Coran carefully injected the liquid into Lance’s arm and waited for a few seconds for the liquid to take effect. “Scalpel please, my boy.” 

Hunk, again, looked at the tray and picked out what looked most like what Coran was asking for. Why couldn’t the healing pods just do this? Why was Coran performing such invasive surgery rather than just putting him in a pod?? As if reading his mind answered him, “The reason why Lance isn’t going straight into the pod is because the pod will likely heal Number Three’s bones in the wrong alignment and ruin his mobility.” 

“Uh- Coran, can’t the pod just move his bones into the right alignment? That makes, um sense, right??” Hunk really didn’t know much about the pods. Lance or maybe Pidge probably knew more about the pods than he did. Lance definitely spent a lot of time with Coran between training, and Pidge was, well, Pidge. “I mean, it’s like, super-advanced, right?”

Hunk watched as Coran carefully put down the scalpel, surprisingly the cut wasn’t profusely bleeding or something. “Not exactly. Hand me the retractor.” At Hunk’s confused face, Coran amended himself. “The scissors that have hooks at the end of them. See, the cryo pods are basically controlled forms of Quintessence. Quintessence has very many mysterious abilities, but certain Alteans are able to harness those abilities. One of those abilities in healing” Coran took the scissor things and used them to hold Lance’s skin and muscles aside. 

“So, the pods heal using Quintessence?” Hunk supposed that made sense. Allura could heal people, or at least he thought he had seen her healing Shiro and Keith at one point after a mission. Why wasn’t he or Lance ever healed personally by Allura? That was kinda unfair. Maybe healing people was personal or like reserved for super close friends or something. Nevermind, still weird. “That’s kinda cool.” 

“Yes, the ‘coolest’ as you youngsters would say. The healing pods were created by a brilliant Altean named Tiras Layrol, who refined the method to store Quintessence from the Balmeran crystals and focus healing on the entire body. Hand me those forceps.” Lance’s bone looked… Bad. Really, really bad. It had two jagged bone pieces and a bunch of smaller bone pieces, just like, in the arm. Hunk gulped. Was this what all broken arms looked like? He thought the bone just split in two or something. “Breath, my boy. It’s okay. While this is a pretty bad break, it looks like there aren’t too many pieces. Hand me the QT- er, the small light with the shield.” 

Hunk picked through the tools and found a white flashlight with a ring of glass or acrylic separating the viewer from the light. Coran took it from his hands and held it over Lance’s wound. “What does this thing do?” 

“It’s just like the pods, but much, much, more focused. It isn’t as powerful as the pods, but it’s able to hold bones like this in place while the pods heal everything completely. The pods measure the amounts and refine the Quintessence using… Filters? That’s the best way to explain it. To reduce the negative effects of Quintessence and heal the body. There are limits, though. If the settings are wrong and there’s too much exposure, the body and mind will decay from stress. That’s why it’s best not to do consecutive healing pod runs. It’s much better to use them days apart. That’s why when you paladins get small cuts, small sprains, scrapes, or bruises, we don’t throw you in the healing pods. Instead, we use this amazing little tool!” Coran had found where one of the pieces of smaller bone fit the bigger bone piece and held it in place with the forceps. He turned on the light, and Hunk watched as the bone piece’s slowly knit themselves together and reduced the large crack into more of a small fissure. It wasn’t perfect and still was definitely broken. Back on Earth, that type of injury would probably take months to heal. 

Hunk would definitely make better use of the flashlighty thing. There were too many times when he accidentally cut himself on a knife or burned his fingers and hands on baking trays, pots, and pans. Everyone in the team probably could be using this tool a lot more. Keith and Shiro always overworked themselves and had scrapes from training, and Pidge was clumsy when she was tired. 

“Though, the only person who really comes to me for small healing would be Lance himself. Well, he doesn’t come to me, he uses it himself. Number Three really only comes to me for big injuries. Like this! This tool doesn’t completely heal the bones, muscles, or nerves, it’s much too weak. It mostly just closes cuts, or, in this case, holds bones together.” 

Hunk winced. Of course Lance wouldn’t go to anybody or tell anybody when he had cuts or sprains. It suddenly made sense why Lance seemed clean for so long with Allura, Shiro, and Keith hounding him every day and attacking his insecurities. Not that Hunk didn’t believe in his buddy, it was just that, well, yeah Hunk needed to have more faith in Lance. Hunk looked away from Coran as he continued to put the pieces back into place and knit them mostly together. Hunk’s eyes shifted downwards toward Lance’s thighs and hips. Was Lance cutting more? Was that why he looked tired all of the time and had stopped opening up to Hunk? Hunk’s hand had found itself floating to Lance’s undersuit, intent on taking it off to check for fresh cuts or scars. 

“Hunk, my boy.” Hunk snapped out of that trance and almost smacked himself. No, this wouldn’t help, he needed Lance to come to him, to talk to him. Hunk abruptly pulled his hand away from the sheet. “While you and I both know that Lance has a nasty habit of inflicting harm upon himself, it’s better for him to come to us rather than us forcing ourselves upon him and breaching his privacy.”

“Yeah. I know that, but I just. Yeah. I’m worried about him, Coran. He’s closing himself off again! He’s not eating as much as he should, he’s not sleeping as much as he should. Sometimes, he doesn’t even sleep.” While it was important to know about how bad the cutting was or if Lance was being safe while cutting, it was more important for Lance to feel safe and respected. It just frustrated Hunk so much to see his friend so hurt! Coran hummed and nodded while Hunk spoke, “I wish he didn’t hurt so much, I wish he would reach out and talk to us rather than putting our feelings first and shoving aside his own! It feels like the first time I met him!” 

“You know what I think, my boy?” Hunk nodded for Coran to continue, “I wish that you and the others hadn’t been dragged into this war. I lost my friends, I lost my wife, but what hurt the most was waking up and finding out that I lost my children. To see more children being hurt, or losing their lives in our war is… It’s the worst possible outcome.”

Coran sighed and moved the Quintessence Flashlight away from Lance’s arm. He had finished putting most of the pieces in place, and it looked like all of the bone fragments had either been removed or put back into place. From Hunk’s point of view, Lance’s arm looked ready to go into the pod. Probably not the rest of him, though. He still looked really bloody, actually. Lance’s eyes both looked black, and there were bruises everywhere, well everywhere you could see through dried blood. Most of it was still covered up by Lance’s undersuit. It was filthy. “Is Lance’s arm done yet?”

Coran shook his head slightly and removed the hooks holding Lance’s arm open. He carefully moved the light along the skin and it closed itself off, leaving only the barest hint of what looked like a self-harm cut on Lance’s arm. It would close up completely in the pod. “I had a son around Lance’s age, actually, and they were fairly similar. Both Lance and he were rambunctious and loved to play pranks on the others. Sometimes, I look at Lance and think about him. It’s hard not to think about Lance as my own son sometimes.”

“Did your son die at the start of the war too?” Hunk nearly slapped himself again, what a stupid question! “Uh- sorry that was a stupid question.” 

“No, it’s quite alright, my boy! That’s definitely a story for another time, though. Help me take off this undersuit?” Coran and Hunk carefully peeled off the undersuit. More bruises were revealed, and the caked blood on Lance’s face and around the hole in Lance’s stomach crumbled away. Hunk looked away when Coran got to Lance’s hips and lower. When he peeked, Coran had covered everything with a clean white sheet. “Now, from my X-rays and examinations, the only thing that we need to reset is my dear boy’s broken ribs and nose. Most of the ribs only have displaced fractures so they’ll be much easier to hold in place. And the nose can just be popped back into place!” 

Could noses even be popped back into place?! When Hunk thought of a broken nose, he definitely didn’t envision any “popping”. That just seemed like a bad decision. But, Coran knew best. “How do you reset it? I can do it while you work on the ribs.” 

“Ah, that requires surgery, so it’s best to leave it alone right now. We’re dealing with injuries in terms of importance, and since the ribs haven’t been piercing Lance’s lounges yet, we left them for after the arm, which is definitely a worse break. But they still take preference since they could still be moved and end up stabbing into something they shouldn’t be. Lance is very lucky that there is little to no internal bleeding!” Coran followed much of the same procedure he had with Lance’s arms. Slicing open small cuts near Lance’s ribs, finding the bones and holding them in place. If Lance were to have someone punch him in the ribs right now, the ribs would probably break again. “It should be quick work from here, unless Lance has another negative reaction to the numbing or sedatives.” 

“Why are you so c-calm, Coran?” Hunk certainly wasn’t calm, if it wasn’t for Coran’s smooth words and calming effect, he most likely would have killed Lance from his own incompetence. “I-I mean, Lance is pretty injured here, and you haven’t even talked about anything other than the broken bones…” 

Coran chuckled at Hunk’s words, shaking his head slightly. If he wasn’t working on Lance’s ribs, he probably would be stroking his mustache in thought. “Believe me, my boy, I’ve had my fair share of Lance’s antics. I cannot count the number of times he has dropped in on my infirmary with some serious injury he didn’t deem ‘bad enough’ to be examined under the resident medic.” 

“Yeah, Lance is definitely like that…” Hunk felt more tears prickling at his eyes. Why was he even with Coran anyways? He wasn’t acting as more than a glorified tool hander outer and clearly Coran could do this by himself. “Why am I even here, you could do this without me…” 

“Well, my boy, I didn’t think you really wanted to be alone right now. Especially after finding out that your buddy was injured so terribly.” Coran stated that as a fact, maybe it was. Maybe Hunk would have broken down alone in the kitchen if he weren’t here, talking to Coran right now. Or maybe, he would be freaking out at the team for not listening to Lance, maybe he would be screaming at them for even thinking of leaving Lance behind. 

Hunk really wasn’t the most stable person out of the team. That title fell to, maybe Coran? He really was the only person who managed to take care of his trauma and baggage in any meaningful way. The rest of them either bottled it all up, worked themselves to the bone, or were a dick to anybody and anyone. Hunk fell into the category of bottling it all up. He didn’t particularly like to talk to anybody about what he was feeling, other than Lance, and he certainly didn’t want to ask for help. Asking for help would be admitting Hunk had problems, and he did not want to do that. 

Pidge was one of the few people that Hunk could absolutely trust with his life and his feelings, but somehow, he was never able to just talk with her the same way he could with Lance. Everything always came so smoothly with Lance, and he was able to truly relax with Lance. It wasn’t anything against Pidge, she was just too competitive for his taste. Lance and Pidge probably were the best things that had happened to Hunk. Aside from his family, of course. Hunk was on the “I’m fighting for my family” team, just like Lance and Pidge, actually. The others were fighting for vengeance, or for honor, or for valor, or whatever else the “heroes” fought for. They kind of acted like protagonists in a tv show or something. 

There were times that Hunk honestly wanted to just punch Allura in the face for her constant do or die attitude. It was unhealthy and honestly, wanted to make Hunk die. If he was that expendable to Allura, then why should he keep fighting for her? If she kept treating them like soldiers in her war, Hunk might just quit. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t quit, he definitely did not have enough bravery to just quit. He couldn’t just walk up to Allura and be like, “Hey! I’m quitting. I’m done with your shit!” 

“What was that, my boy?” Coran looked up at him, concern furrowed in his brow. “You want to quit? If you don’t want to be here, it’s okay, you can take a break.”

“What? Oh, no Coran. I’m just thinking out loud, haha. I’m perfectly fine here. Nothing is bothering me. Totally okay. Yup.” Hunk gave what he hoped to be a reassuring smile Coran’s way, and sighed in relief when the man went back to Lance’s ribs. “So, um what are you doing now?” 

Coran gave him a soft smile, it looked like he knew exactly what Hunk was talking about. “Well, Lance’s ribs here are slightly more broken than I thought they were, so I’m just piecing them back together. You and the team should be glad that we have amazing scar creams! Otherwise, all of you would be looking very different!” 

“Scars? All of us would have scars? But I thought that…” 

“Oh no, the healing pods don’t have the ability to heal scars. Haven’t you noticed after healing pod recovery we always do check-ups?” Coran closed up all of the cuts on Lance’s chest and gently prodded at his ribs, checking for more breaks. “I suppose not, the pod does leave quite a few of you disoriented after use.” 

“Yeah, I barely remember the times that I’ve had to get healed and stuff. If I think about it right now, it’s just flashes of white and being caught by the team when I get out, then food. I always eat after getting out of a pod, I remember that.” 

Coran moved up to Lance’s nose, gently taking both sides and feeling around for a little bit. He then squeezed on both sides, and Hunk heard a faint grinding noise. Coran packed gauze on both sides and taped it down. “There’s that, now to make sure nothing else has deviated or cracked even more. Have you ever treated a sprained ankle, Hunk?” 

“Er- yes I have. We got very, very basic medical training at the Garrison.” Hunk glanced down at Lance’s ankle and took a double-take, it was swollen to the size of a small grapefruit. That was not good. That was double not good. “I-I have to get rid of the swelling first, right? Then ice the ankle to reduce pain and injury, and wrap the ankle to compress the injury.”

“Precisely right, young medic! Could you take care of that right now while I bandage his other injuries? There’s ice in the freezer storage over there.” Coran pointed to the freezer storage door. Okay, this was easy enough, just treat the sprained ankle. 

Hunk thought that thinking in steps really was the best way to think. It was like the boulder method, take one rock at a time and build up to the largest boulder on the mountain. It was really so simple. Step by step, take it easy. That’s what his therapist told him anyways. He missed his therapist, Miss McConaughy really was the nicest. Hunk wondered if Pidge and Lance had had therapists before the Garrison if they also had issues with anxiety. Maybe they also had to deal with severe panic attacks? Probably not, Lance always seemed so calm and collected, and Pidge was always either super excited about tech and whatever they were working on at the moment, or were extremely angry and depressed. He was pretty sure that Pidge was actually bipolar. 

Was Pidge bipolar? She had a tendency to be elated, to an almost unnatural degree only to fall down really, really far. Sometimes he had trouble forcing her to actually go to sleep instead of bouncing around the castle fixing random things, and other times he had to force-feed her just because she had no energy. That sounded pretty bipolar, but Hunk wasn’t a trained therapist, he couldn’t make that judgment. He definitely wasn’t going to ask Pidge either, that would be kind of weird. How would that conversation even go? 

‘Hey, are you bipolar?’ 

‘No, why would you ask that? That’s so rude, are you saying I”m crazy? How dare you, I hate you, let’s never speak again.’

Yeah no, that did not sound appealing at all. No way would he be asking Pidge if she was bipolar. No freaking way. 

Hunk hummed to himself as he combed the walls of the walk-in freezer. This was the freezer storage? It was so big. It held so many different medicines, and blood samples, and everything really. Where was the ice?? Hunk really should have made an attempt to learn Altean. Given his experience with English though, he probably wouldn’t have picked up Altean anyways. Hunk passed by shelf after shelf before finally, finally happening across the ice. Why was it so far back anyways? That was ridiculous, it was probably the one thing that everybody needed, no matter what and it was all the way in the back. Now to make the long grueling journey back to the front of the freezer. 

When he came out of the freezer, Coran was absentmindedly wrapping a bandage around Lance’s head. Lance’s skin, his usually pristine and beautiful skin, was a horror story. Sure the blood was bad, and it had pained Lance to see him with dark stains slowly flaking off to the ground, yet, this was even worse. The bruises couldn’t be wiped away, and they would only get uglier. From the way that Coran described the healing pods, if Hunk were to sit and watch the healing pods, he could watch the bruises disappear. That was creepy. 

Hunk held the ice to Lance’s ankle and slowly felt the swelling reduce. It would take forever to go away at this rate, and he could only hold the ice on for about 20 minutes before taking it away. How long had it been since he first came down to see his best friend lying on a table broken? No, Lance wasn’t broken. He fought to the very end and was able to make it out of that stupid base. Goddammit, that was a horrible fucking mission. They shouldn’t have gone, they had barely even made it out anyways. Hunk slammed a fist down on the table and growled. Coran’s head snapped up to look at Hunk, and Hunk automatically felt guilty for startling the man. “Ah- sorry Coran, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No matter, what’s bothering you? Well, other than Lance, because not to worry! He won’t have any injuries after we finish up here! He won’t even be sore!” Coran gave him a reassuring smile and went back to wiping away at Lance’s body and sterilizing it. Preparing someone for a pod that was supposed to heal all was complicated.

“It’s- It’s just-” Hunk couldn’t find the right words for his anger, he couldn’t state just how angry this whole stupid situation made him. Hunk stared down at the ice and tried to collect his thoughts. “I- I’m just so angry!”

Coran gently rested a hand on Hunk’s, “At what, my dear boy?”

“I’m not angry at anybody! I’m just- I’m just angry!” Hunk scrubbed at his face in frustration, then they dropped down to the table with a thump.

“I never said who…”

“I’m angry at them! I’m- I’m angry at Allura for suggesting to leave Lance behind, I’m angry at Shiro for agreeing with it, and I’m angry at Keith for not fighting it! We’re a  _ team _ !! We’re supposed to be there for each other! We’re supposed to fight for each other! We’re supposed to lift each other up! Not push each other down!! I- Pidge was so  _ mean _ to Lance. She just- she just- said the meanest things to him! A-and I know it! I know that they hurt him, I know that what she said was wrong, but- but I-! Argh!!” Hunk grabbed the ice and hurled it at the wall. It smashed into the wall and exploded everywhere, sending mushy crushed ice cascading to the floor, “It’s not fair!! Why did it have to be Lance lying here? Why is- why is it always Lance?! Why couldn’t it have been  _ me _ ?! Why is it that whenever the universe seems angry it always takes it out on Lance?!”

Coran walked around the table and guided Hunk to a nearby wall. They sat against it, as Hunk ranted some more, “Why did Allura have to- to even say that?? Why did she have to make us leave?! She knew! She  _ knew _ that the base was going to explode! She  _ knew _ that Lance wasn’t going to survive if we just  _ left _ him! She knew that he wasn’t going to just get up and go chasing after her again!” 

Coran stroked his mustache in thought, “Allura- Well, Allura is trying her best, isn’t she?”

Hunk turned to search Coran’s face to see if he was joking, he wasn’t. “I know she is! I know that she’s stressed and just doing what she can to end the war, but she just wanted to leave behind Lance to-! She wanted to leave behind Lance to  _ die _ !! She’s not just  _ stressed _ , Coran! She’s so angry!! She wants to kill Zarkon! She wants to kill all of the Galra! She wants to  **_kill_ ** them  **all** . There’s no- there’s no avoiding that, Coran! There’s no dancing around that, Coran! How many of us will she step over to get there? She’s- She’s  _ clearly _ already stepped all over ‘Lonce’. Who do you think will be next?! Shiro? Keith? Pidge?? Me?! Or- or maybe- maybe she’s going to sacrifice you next!” 

Coran flinched at Hunk’s words and looked down to avoid the scathing glare that Hunk was giving him. He looked somber, like he agreed but didn’t want to agree. It made Hunk feel guilty, fell wrong for saying that. And he was, he shouldn’t have pushed it too far, he wasn’t the only one who was hurting. But who was going to- who was going to stop him? He- He was justified in what he was saying. He wasn’t  _ wrong _ .

“You’re not wrong, my boy. But- but Allura is just a child like the rest of you, and I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how to help any of you. I want her to, to not take this anger out on all of you, on the universe, but she’s lost everything. She lost her home, her life, her family… I- I know that it’s not enough for you, but- I want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry about dragging you and your friends into our war… I’m sorry about forcing you into this conflict that you shouldn’t be in. You’re just  _ children _ . And- Allura doesn’t see that. Even- even Shiro doesn’t see that. But- we can’t blame them for that. We can’t hold onto this anger at them…” 

Tear’s slowly dripped down Hunk’s face as he stared down into his lap. He wanted to listen to Coran and not be angry. He hated being angry, it was the last thing he wanted to do, to be. He didn’t want to be defined by his anger, to be known as that one bitter person who always lashed out at people because he thought that the universe was out to get him. But it was so hard not to be when the people he was supposed to trust just walked all over him and his best friend. They valued Keith and Pidge, they favored Keith and Pidge, but- but why couldn’t they just like and trust them all? The tears turned into streams and Hunk wailed into his hands. 

“There, there, my boy. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay…” Coran put an arm around Hunk and sat with him as he cried, rubbing soothing circles into his back. 

Hunk cried for Lance. He cried about the injuries, he cried about the injustices, he cried about how stupid he was. He cried about how useless he was. Hunk cried about a lot of things. There were just that many things to cry about. “It’s my fault that Lance got hurt. I should have been able to do more, to be there, to help him…”

“No! No.” Coran forcefully pushed himself away from Hunk and brought Hunk’s head up to look him in the eyes. “It’s not your fault that Lance is hurt right now. You- There was nothing that you could do that you aren’t doing right now. You’re helping him right now. You weren’t the one that hurt him, and you couldn’t have been there to help him.” 

“No- But- Shiro and Keith could have- Pidge would have-”

“We both know that the mission was all about stealth, and you needed to provide a distraction and protect the rest of the team from the base’s defenses. You were protecting him, my boy! If you weren’t outside and instead inside, the forces would have overwhelmed the others and the distraction wouldn’t have been there for Lance! Then all of you would have gotten captured!” Coran lightly shook Hunk to get his point across. That seemed to only bring more tears.

“I just wish I could have done better.”

“Ah, there there… It’s alright now. You did everything you could.” Hunk’s blubbering slowly turned into small sniffles. Before it stopped entirely. They sat in silence before Coran sighed and slowly got up, “Come now, Hunk. Let’s finish what we started, and then we can have a hot cup of that nice drink you call… Hot Chocklaetee?” 

Hunk let out a hollow chuckle before pushing himself off the ground too. The sooner that they finished with Lance, the sooner he could heal and wake up. While he was waiting for Lance, Hunk should go get a snack and take a nap. He needed to chill out and do his own healing just a little bit. This entire experience was draining, Hunk didn’t really feel anything other than tired and empty. 

Since they really didn’t have much else to do to prepare Lance for deep healing, the next 10 minutes passed with a grainy haze over them. It was just a lot of cleaning and little things like wrapping the sprained ankle and applying bruise reducers to Lance’s face and body. Coran fitted Lance with a modified pod suit to account for all of the bandages, and they used a gurney to wheel him from the medbay to the pod room. After they set Lance up in the pod and Coran typed a few things in, he left, mumbling something about cleaning bloodstains. Hunk was left in the room with only his thoughts and the slight humming of the pod to accompany him. 

Was this war really worth it? Inevitably, the Galra’s reach would end up reaching Earth. They were already at Kerberos already so it wasn’t like it would be long before Earth itself was in danger as well, but was Hunk really qualified for Voltron? Hunk was just a teenager. He didn’t have a lot of training in hand to hand, he didn’t have any training in being sneaky and using guns. He was just trained to build and improve objects, tangible objects. Not fly a giant yellow magic space lion. Not doing repairs for an ancient alien warship. Not carry a giant gun that kills thousands of Galra. 

Back at the Garrison, all he did was engineer related. He could barely fly, and he could do amazing repairs. Back on Earth, before Voltron, before everything, all he wanted to do was become an engineer. Lance wanted to fly to the moon, Hunk wanted to build the rockets that took him to the moon. It was so simple, so easy, such a simple goal. “We wanted to fly through the stars, look where that’s gotten us, buddy…” Hunk rested his head against the glass of the pod. 

Things had really taken a turn for the worse. At first, Voltron seemed like so much fun. Being a hero was… It was every kid’s dream! Not really Hunk, but, the point still stood. To be a hero, was so, so, so dolled up. It was made to seem like such a good and easy journey. Things come so easily to heroes and protagonists, like the main character of an anime… Too bad Hunk wasn’t a character in some flashy cartoon. 

Hunk’s thoughts were cut off by the soft pattering of shoes. It sounded like either Pidge or Keith was headed this way. He couldn’t really tell. It definitely wasn’t Allura or Shiro, because Allura’s steps clicked from her small heels, and Shiro tended not to make any noise when moving anywhere. Kind of like Lance. Lance could have probably pinpointed exactly who was moving this way, and approximately where everybody else was in the castle. Lance was weird like that. 

Sometimes, it seemed like Lance knew so much more than everybody else in the room, and sometimes it looked like he was trying too hard to be a dumbass. Lance liked to put on some type of mask or shield to protect himself, making himself seem dumber or stupider. Hunk didn’t get it at all. He knew that Lance was incredibly smart. Maybe not smart in the way that he and Pidge were, but Lance was a genius himself. Hunk was still trying to pry his IQ out of him. Not that IQ really mattered, but Hunk had the right to be curious. After all, Lance knew pretty much everything about Hunk, but Hunk knew barely anything about Lance. Hunk felt like a bad friend. 

“Hunk? Lance…? I didn’t see you guys in the kitchen! Are you…” So it was Pidge. Pidge peeked her head around the door and into the pod room. “Hunk?! What’s wr- What happened to-?! Is Lance okay?!!”

She awkwardly made a dash across the room to Hunk and the ring of pods and came to a stop in front of Lance’s pods. She held a hand up to the pod but stopped just before it made contact. Her hand hovered there for a couple of seconds before it flopped down to her side. She sat down softly next to Hunk and held open her arms. Hunk pulled her into his arms and it was quiet for a few minutes before he both broke down in tears again. Hunk was wrong, he wasn’t too exhausted to start crying again.

Pidge pulled away and swiped at her eyes, stuttering out, “Is… is this my fault? Is- is Lance hurt because-”

“No! No. Well, maybe. Er- we should have gone to get him, we should have been there for him. It- it wasn’t just your fault. It was my fault too. It was the rest of the team’s fault too…” 

“Here…” Pidge reached into her pocket and pulled out a small packet of tissues. Hunk snatched it away from Pidge and blew his nose loudly before setting it down to the side. They sat leaning against the pod together. “What… Um… Really happened to Lance? Actually, wait, what are the injuries? How bad is it?” 

“Well… Coran didn’t tell me everything, but, uh… When I treated him, he had a broken arm, broken nose, broken ribs, and a sprained ankle… I don’t know about anything else.” Hunk lightly scratched at his cheek in thought, brows furrowed in thought. “I think I heard Coran mumbling about a concussion though…” 

Pidge shot up and whipped her head around so fast Hunk thought he heard a cracking noise. “A concussion?! How bad? Did- Did his skull crack? Is it a severe concussion? Or mild? Or moderate? Did you see him before he was being operated on? What was he like? Was he disoriented? How much blood was there? Was there blood from his head? Or nose? Did he remember what happened to him? What actually happened to him? How did he get these injuries? What was in that base? Did you go to Allura? Was he slurring his words? Was he-”

“Hey Pidge, slow down. I can’t answer all of that at once! One question at a time…” Hunk held out a hand to soothe her. He couldn’t help but feel his anxieties rising with Pidge’s. Pidge pushed herself off the ground and started pacing in front of Hunk while he spoke. “I don’t know what Coran said about the concussion. I just heard him mumbling about it and the symptoms.”

Pidge grabbed at a strand of her hair and tugged at it. “Of course he was mumbling about the fucking symptoms! Do you know how  _ bad _ this is??? Do you know the symptoms? Lance could have amnesia! He could develop depression! He could wake up with a speech impediment! The pods  _ can’t fix that _ , Hunk!! They’re only going to take care of the physical aspects! They can’t take away any of the more superficial elements! Fuck!!”

“I know the symptoms, Pidge!! I know! Okay?! I get it!! But you yelling at me isn’t going to change that!!” Hunk snapped at Pidge, glaring her down. She didn’t back down to the challenge, leveling her own glare right back. 

“Then why didn’t you ask?!! Why didn’t you get more information?! It seems like all you did was sit here and cry like a fucking baby!!” Pidge roared at Hunk. The atmosphere in the room must have dropped a couple of degrees from the cold way that they were staring at each other. 

Hunk felt something snap inside of him. How dare she?! How dare she come down and yell at him about this?! He worked hard to make sure that Lance was a place where he could heal properly! “Because I cared more about treating his broken arm!! Do you see him? Do you see how his whole body is covered in bandages?! Who do you think was doing that!? I was a little distracted over the fact that my  **best friend** was broken!!” 

Pidge’s face contorted in ugly rage, toxic waste spilling out of her mouth, “Okay?! And?! We’re engineers, Hunk! Scientists! We always! Always! Get all of the information! Lance could- Lance could wake up and not remember us! He could wake up and not remember Voltron, or the Garrison, or his own family!!” 

Hunk rose up and stormed over to Pidge, but she still didn’t back down. “I know! I did all that I could!” 

“You could have done more!!” Pidge tried to shove Hunk back, “Why didn’t you get me?! Why didn’t you do more?!” 

“I’m already blaming myself for this, Pidge! I’m already beating myself up for not helping Lance out more! I’m screaming at myself for not being there to stop whoever hurt him like this!” Hunk couldn’t stop his thoughts from spilling out of his mouth. He wanted Pidge to hurt. He wanted to make her feel just as bad as he was feeling right now. “But what are you going to do? Tell me I’m not good enough?! Tell me I’m an idiot for asking questions?! Are you going to poke at my insecurities and push me towards an attempt?! Because that’s what you fucking did to Lance!!”

Pidge flinched back and her face crumpled, he could see all the rage and anger seep out of her. All of it was replaced with pain and suffering, Hunk could see tears welling up in her eyes. In a soft voice, she whispered, ”Attempt? Lance- Did he?” She gulped, “Did he try to…?”

Hunk regretted what he said immediately he wanted to take back every stupid thing he just said. He almost smacked himself for being a dumbass. Stupid, stupid, stupid! “I- It’s not my place to tell… I’m sorry, Pidge- I didn’t mean…” 

Pidge dropped to the ground and curled up into a ball, head in her knees. She bawled into her arms. When Hunk crouched down to comfort her she pushed him away and shrieked, “No! No! I don’t- I don’t deserve this! Don’t!! I’m a terrible person! I’m a terrible friend! I’m! I’m a t-t-terrible s-sister!!”

“No, Pidge… Wait- I didn’t mean to-”

“I didn’t notice! How could I have not noticed it! Why didn’t I see it?! It was so fucking obvious! It was there! I could have- I should have- I should have done something! I was so  _ mean _ !! I was so vile! I’m disgusting!! Why did I say that?? Why?!” Pidge gripped at her hair, yanking at it while she spoke. Hunk grabbed at her arms to stop her from pulling at it anymore and hurting herself and pulled her into his arms. “I shouldn’t have said that- I can’t have- Tell me I didn’t actually!!”

“It’s okay… It’s okay… Deep breaths, deep breaths.” Hunk clung onto Pidge as her cries dulled down into hiccups. “Lance… Lance is good at hiding it. I only found out after I found him…”

“But- but I should have… I’m sorry, Hunk. I’m so, so, fucking sorry… I shouldn’t have….” Pidge trailed off as she hiccuped again. “I didn’t mean to scream at you- I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay… It’s okay. I get it.” Hunk rubbed at her back. “I know…” 

It seemed silly to have a screaming match with Pidge of all people. Especially in the middle of the pod room with Lance floating just a few feet away. If he was awake right now, he probably would have stepped in between them and told some joke that would have made them stop yelling just to laugh at how random and stupid the joke was. Then he would have told them to stop being stupid and solve their problems with talking and compromise rather than biting each other’s heads off. 

“Hey, Hunk?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think… Do you think Lance’ll forget us?” Pidge pulled herself out of his arms and looked back up to Lance. He seemed so peaceful, floating in the pod. The bruises had faded into an ugly darkish yellow, nearly gone. “I don’t want to lose another brother…”

Hunk shook his head and gave it some thought. “No. Lance is really strong like that. I think he’ll come out of the pod mad as hell that we were fighting right in front of him.” 

“Yeah… Sorry I was being stupid. We should go find Coran and ask him about all of the injuries and stuff.” Pidge turned around and held out a hand to him, to help him up. “Friends?”

Hunk grabbed the hand and hauled himself up. “Friends.” He returned with a smile across his face. 

The two of them left the pod room together, in search of Coran. Pidge started talking about her latest project, and Hunk smiled and nodded, adding his own input. It wasn’t perfect, but, things were going to get better, slowly, but surely. Hunk definitely felt lighter than he had before. He bet that Pidge was feeling a lot lighter too. 

His Chicken Noodle Soup was probably burning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!! What do you guys think of this chapter? Did you like Hunk's point of view? Did he seem too much out of character? Oh well, semantics, am I right? I hope you all are having an amazing day, and not too stressed out about all of this quarantine business... My school year actually ends next week! We got shortened, haha... Now I can focus entirely on this story! :D
> 
> I hope that all of the medical stuff didn't seem too unreal, and my explanations of pod healing and stuff was okay!!
> 
> Sources:  
> https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-to-reset-a-fracture-2549328  
> https://www.verywellhealth.com/treatment-of-broken-bones-2549211  
> https://www.verywellhealth.com/orif-fracture-open-reduction-internal-fixation-2548525  
> https://www.verywellhealth.com/fracture-or-break-2548520  
> https://www.emedicinehealth.com/bone_fracture_broken_bone/article_em.htm  
> https://www.nycfacemd.com/broken-nose-nasal-fracture/  
> https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/diseases--conditions/fractures-broken-bones/  
> https://everynurse.org/careers/surgical-nurse/  
> https://www.facs.org/-/media/files/education/medicalstudents/common_surgical_instruments_module.ashx  
> https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sprained-ankle/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20353231  
> https://www.webmd.com/brain/concussion-traumatic-brain-injury-symptoms-causes-treatments  
> https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/concussion/symptoms-causes/syc-20355594


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